The Moon's Revulsion
by galanthusMist
Summary: Gaara is depressed one night in Konoha, before the Chuunin Exams. Will a chance meeting with a certain female Hyuuga change his perspective? Rated as T for safety /A decidedly Gaara/Hinata themed fic/ COMPLETE
1. Ch1 The Moons Revulsion

DISCLAIMER I own naught but the plot and pieces of writing. The characters etc belong to the creators of Naruto.

This story I had posted on my old fanfiction account, but I've re-written numerous aspects that I've found I much prefer this way. Three chapters overall and the two following this first are intended to be released swiftly. Anyhow, without gilding the lily or any further ado: enjoy~

* * *

_The Moon's Revulsion_

Sabaku no Gaara didn't sleep, didn't cry and couldn't love. He knew no emotion but hate; he had discarded even sorrow. He was known for the merciless slaughter of thousands. People believed that he revelled in their suffering, that he lived only to hear them scream, to hear them beg for their lives... so he knew he was alive. Gaara was a monster.

Gaara of the Sand sat on the tip of the Konoha Hokage's mansion, staring into the sky, hating the full moon: it provided light to the darkest cesspools of the world, it had the ability to give hope of victory to those who would inevitably lose, and it prompted even the cruellest of people to think of warmth, comfort. The moon was pure and one of the few existences left that were good.

It was logical that Gaara didn't understand how the moon, something of that wonder, that virtuous perfection... could ignore his existence, could discard him like trash, could label him a monster like everyone else did. For this he despised it, like how he despised everyone. Why should the moon receive special treatment if it was just like everyone else... if it was heartless? No one realised that by hating him, that by wishing to rid him from the world, they were as much monsters as he was. With every look made by cold, loveless eyes, or with every whispered curse on his soul, another creature of the dark was born. Gaara glared at the pearl of the sky. He was ignoring the fact that he would be participating in the Chuunin exam tomorrow: bloodlust would only distract him from hatred.

A sudden wind blew into his face and he closed his eyes, growling softly. Now even the wind had seemingly turned on him. When it had passed he opened his gaze and ran a hand through his crimson hair. He growled again when he realised he had lost his trail of thought, and tried to focus on something else, admitting defeat. He caught a flash of something in the bottom of his vision. He looked down and saw it was another shinobi streaking through the streets, the fifth he had seen that night. Konoha was too lively for Gaara's taste; perhaps he could fix that at times when he wasn't feeling too alive. His eyes followed the blonde ninja below him jadedly. The person passed a few buildings, ran down a few streets then stopped at a ramen shop. Gaara, realising this person wasn't going to move for a while, looked into the sky.

His attention was once again ripped from his thoughts when he heard a noise from behind him. Disappearing was the rush of wind that had been created while the thing (most likely a human) had been running, thus was revealed the sound of seemingly stumbling footsteps. They eventually dwindled into nothing: for some reason, this person had stopped. Behind him. What a horrible mistake for them to make. Without turning, Gaara entwined his too thin fingers and relaxed his chin on the bulging knuckles, before saying so incredibly nonchalantly:

"I give you this chance: You can leave now, or I will kill you." He waited for the rush of wind to reappear as the person ran from him. It didn't. Gaara almost smiled, but held that look of craziness within him, for now. Obviously this person didn't understand how serious he was. Remedying that, he let the bloodlust pour out of him, the air becoming heavy as if clotted with his murderous intent, smothering all life and happiness around him without mercy. It reeked of decay. He spoke again, his soft, yet gravel-like voice emitting emotionlessly from his mouth.

"Too late." He waited for another few seconds for the sound of the person attempting to escape him, but instead heard a thump behind him. Of a nonplussed curiosity, he turned and looked at the motionless form lying down in front of his eyes. The person had fainted.

Gaara lifted an eyebrow a fraction higher than its usual position and silenced his bloodlust, continuing to stare at the body. He sat for a while, pondering what to do. He could destroy the person, but it wasn't half as fulfilling when he couldn't see the fear in his victims' eyes as his sand, slowly and agonisingly, disabled their ability to breathe... The person's closed left eye twitched.

When nothing else happened, Gaara stood up and walked towards the body before squatting beside it. He studied the face: it was a female, about the age of twelve with short midnight blue hair, the bangs hanging over her face. She would be considered pretty by most people, but the multiple bruises over her pale skin stunted her looks. Gaara supposed she had been training late and had far passed her stamina. He was irritated that she hadn't passed out from fear, but merely exhaustion and that it was simply a coincidence Gaara had said he would kill her while she was falling. She probably hadn't even seen him, never mind having felt frightened from what he said.

Gaara sighed and relaxed his eyebrow, before rather purposelessly reaching out his hand, poking the girl's shoulder a single time. Her eyelid's shot open so quickly that a lesser person would have fallen backwards with surprise. Gaara showed no reaction. The girl, seeing Gaara, sat up quickly and crawled away backwards by use of her hands, eyes wider than Gaara truly thought humanly possible.

Her eyes. They looked remarkably... like two moons...

"I'm sorry!" The girl blurted out, and Gaara raised his eyebrow again.

"What?" He growled blankly, and the girl answered, speaking quickly.

"I apologise. I d-don't know what I did, but I must have done something wrong for the o-oddness of this situation and I'm so, so very sorry." Gaara blinked. Looking at the girl who was so utterly weak, helpless and even seemingly dizzy for how she spoke now, Gaara knew his bloodlust should have been increasing. It should have become frenzied, uncontrollable, fatal, but her eyes distracted too much for him to feel anything else. They sat in heavy silence for numerous minutes, until the girl spoke.

"Thank you for h-h-however you he-helped me... but I have to, to go." Gaara dragged his attention from her eyes and noted her almost amusingly pathetic stuttering. The girl stood, not once taking her gaze from Gaara's forever staring orbs of cerulean. Neither ninja blinked.

Until a wave of exhaustion hit the girl and she fell to the side. She would fall off the roof. Gaara's eyelids widened, then, because a reflected shaft of moonlight suddenly blinded him, stabbing at his eyes like a blade. Only once he regained his sight did he realise that the girl was lying –unhurt—on a pile of his sand; his gourd had opened while he wasn't concentrating. A paralysed Gaara only watched as the girl lightly stroked the sand suspiciously with one of her hands, before standing up, straighter this time. She looked at Gaara as the truth dawned on her.

"Thank you." She whispered in her quiet voice, which was softer than even before, for how it was now filled with _unconfused_ gratitude. Then she smiled at him, and Gaara's eyelids widened again: the smile had caused her eyes to shimmer in the moonlight, and it sent shivers that were... the opposite of brutal and painful, through the skin of Gaara's back. He forced himself to nod, but it was then that a speck of red on the girl's face caught his eye.

There was a short, crimson line on the girl's cheek. She was **bleeding**.

For that sight, near everything of the world melted away from Gaara's vision and attention, leaving an entirety of black nothingness acting as surroundings to a new reality. He was aware of himself, that girl and the cut alone. All his confusion, along with any other oddness he had been experiencing only moments ago, fizzled into naught until he was driven by only one thing. The aspect or object tore apart his insides, drilled into his brain and ridded him of his thoughts so incredibly that Gaara's entire consciousness was engulfed by this... yearning.

In a formidable trance, Gaara began to take slow steps towards the girl, his face blank and his stare fitted only upon the cut. The female stood there, watching Gaara walk towards her, more wondering about his purpose than fearful. Sabaku no Gaara stopped when he was close enough that the two teenagers' thighs were brushing, and slowly he lifted his hand towards the girl's face. Another bead of blood squeezed from the slice.

Gaara placed his thumb on it. A chill reverberated through his body for touching the girl's glacial skin, despite the sand coating his flesh blocking him from her. Only in a world of almost nothingness could such impossibility occur. For a pause even the pulsating yearning of his spirit silenced, and there was no noise in reality for this last moment... until he swiftly swept his touch ever so gently across the cut, wiping the blood from it. The sand of his fingertip did not absorb the droplet, and instead it slid from his grasp.

The splash of blood drip upon roof-tile awoke him from his trance. He realised how he had noticed the girl had briefly closed her eyes and let out a small breath as he had brushed his thumb across her cheek. Gaara lowered his hand and took a step back, realism having now returned. Reality contained the flush that had risen to the top of the girl's cheeks and the emotions that ran through her face as she looked at Gaara. Not one of the emotions was one he was used to receiving. When her expression settled, she smiled faintly again, that look holding some feeling that Gaara had never truly see before. His attention moved from her lips to her words when she spoke.

"Well, um... goodnight. I hope we s-see each other ag-again sometime." She said quietly, and then with one last look at him with those eyes she took off, running out into the darkness. Silence spread thickly upon the night once more as her steps faded into nothing. He was, once again, alone.

Gaara stood for a time that he didn't care to measure, watching where the girl had disappeared. He summoned the sand back to his gourd and then walked back to his perch to sit again. He set his mind on the memory of the girl's eyes, thinking of only them.

They were incredibly different than any others he had seen directed at him in his life. They had looked at him without hate and without fear, but with... with that which he had seen other people share, but never with him: thankfulness. The girl had been pure, true —and innocent. She had been genuinely grateful to him. Only one person had ever looked at him like that, yet at the same time they were incomparable: The look he had received from the first person, his uncle, had been tinged with falseness, the tenderness blatantly a horrible lie in hindsight. The girl's look, however, was too strong to be faked: every inch of the pearl white had been filled with emotion.

Gaara thought of the final smile she had given him. He knew its unknown, secret emotion had not been something evil or cruel, for Gaara was well acquainted with such reactions to him, but what truly confused him about it all was that he _felt_ as he thought of this unexplained emotion. He had experienced a feeling.

Suppressed thoughts he had forbidden himself to ever remember began to attempt to force themselves from his subconscious into his current mindset –and, for some unknown reason, Gaara had a feeling again. He felt that he wanted to know what these hidden thoughts were. The feeling of wanting was similar to bloodlust, but differed in how destruction alone would not fulfil it. Instead he knew that he'd have to fight with his own mind.

However, upon encroaching on starting to begin that battle, a blinding burst of fluid crimson colour shot into Gaara's sight. The world was coated red... and then delayed agony struck him with smothering horror. For this attack from his mind, he clasped his hand to his forehead, the place he was mentally struck: just over his tattoo.

There was no existence external to this punishment, and he opened his mouth in a silent scream and fell onto his back, writhing on the floor in unbearable agony. Pain overrode everything: his senses, his thoughts, his wanting, his memories, the very knowledge of the world around him. He trashed about, helpless, and his eyes rolled into his head. He had lost in battling his brain before even beginning. There was no release, no escape, only torture.

When without a warning the pain abated. With every deepening breath, the outside world came back to Gaara's attention, and he embraced the rushes of reality. After a length of time, he remembered what strength was and noticed that it was returning to him. Forcefully, he rolled onto his hands and knees, gasping, sweating under his swathe of sand. His eyes had leaked some clear fluid he knew to be tears, though he had not spilled them in many years: since his first slaughter in fact, of a traitorous relative whose blood had tasted of failure and weakness...

When a gentle throbbing was the only remnant of the pain, Gaara sat up. He wiped his forehead with the back of his hand, causing the front of his hair to stick up with sand crystals wet with sweat. He listened to the sounds of the night as he contemplated what could possibly have happened to start that session of struggling.

Solid, sombre and desert dry once more, Sabaku no Gaara considered seeking his lost trail of remembrance of memories from his past long suppressed, but realized that they were once again heavily buried and hidden away in a corner of his being. He snarled –with a fury that caused animals in the houses around him to give terrified yaps in response—and thumped the ground beside him with his fist, ignoring the few particles of sand that fell from his hand afterward.

He cleared his mind, not wanting to know horrible emptiness or loss –he knew those sensations for the times he swallowed bad blood, and how it sickened him. Doing pointless things, such as worrying over this failure, was not of his interests. Seeing naught else to do instead, the son of the Kazekage looked into the sky to the moon.

A mental copy of the girl smiling and her final words appeared before him. Gaara thought on those for a long time.

For perhaps, despite even this loss... just maybe... the moon had not utterly abandoned him yet, after all.


	2. Ch2 Memories of Regret

Admittedly an even longer chapter, by about 1000 words. There are a couple of flashbacks within this update, but that's something the anime Naruto is known for anyway.

I'd like to give giant 'thank you's to my two (very swift) reviewers, along with those who favourited/alerted this story. Enjoy~

* * *

Memories of Regret

"Gaara? We're going to walk around for a bit, okay?" Temari said, her voice holding a shake of hesitance. The three sand shinobi were at this moment in the Tower, the success point for the Chuunin Exam's second task. They had arrived a day ago, and needless to say Gaara was growing bored, and when he was bored he was agitated, which generally lead to someone dying in an excruciatingly ugly way. Temari and Kankuro were being especially cautious and had made an unspoken, mutual agreement that avoiding Gaara whenever possible would be very wise. Gaara knew of this, of course, but he didn't bother speaking about his awareness. Also, he agreed with them, and noted how he did not expect those two to be that intelligent.

Gaara nodded to Temari's question and heard her swallow in relief before she and Kankuro hurried out, obviously making a weak attempt to leave as quickly as possible without showing Gaara their fear. Eventually the sound of their footsteps faded into nothingness. In the new silence, Gaara let out a hard sigh of breath, and then walked away from the window he had been standing at –after giving one last glare to the full moon. Idle, he moved into the middle of the small, bare room he was in. Sighting a support pillar in the far left corner he sat down, his back placed against it and his legs sprawled idly in front of him. Gaara closed his eyes and leant his head back, letting a groan emit from behind his grinding teeth.

Memories of the last two days flittered in and out of his mind, as they had been doing for the last few hours, and the irregularity of the flashes was driving him to insanity. Seeing it as the only method to overcome those thoughts, Gaara succumbed to the memories. The beginning of his frustration was hard to decide, but a peak point of it occurred in the Chuunin second task when three Rain ninja thought they could get the better of him.

_**FLASHBACK**_

"Just face it: you guys can't hope to defeat Gaara." Sabaku no Gaara partly listened to the jibes that Kankuro, his idiot older brother, was shooting at the Rain ninja. Gaara's heart was pounding deafeningly in his ears, covering the weak retort the ninja threw back. Every inch and fibre of the Kazekage's son was now swallowed by both entrancingly potent bloodlust, and the malevolent glee that his undying hunger would be fed once again. Gaara, running only on this passion, lifted his arms –slowly because of the heaviness of unspent energy— and fitted his fingers together. His face was blank, but his soul screeched for relief from the anticipation. He moved his hands in the appropriate fashion, the malice in him boring unrelentingly into his brain, and he shouted the words he had said so many times before.

"SAND COFFIN!" In front of Gaara the thick, spiralling sand tendrils spun themselves swiftly around the ninja's ankles, travelling up his body until he was almost completely encased, only his face uncovered. Ignoring the muses of confusion of the Rain ninja's comrades, Gaara took a step forward and grabbed one of the umbrellas that had implanted itself in the ground in front of him.

"All I have to do," He heard himself say, "Is cover your big mouth and you'd be dead... but that would be too easy and too boring." He lifted his arm, which was now shaking: Gaara was losing control to the wildness inside. The 'mummy' followed the motion of the sand shinobi's arm, lifting into the air with globules of sand dropping from the bottom of the encasement. Gaara's hand stopped in place and for the first time throughout his current motions, he turned to look –with bulging eyes— at the intense fear swimming in his victim's face, and savoured the sight.

He fisted his hand, "SAND BURIAL!"

The coffin imploded, violently. Shielding himself from the heavy splatters of blood he could feel smack to his umbrella, Gaara braced himself for the rushing of both relief and vile, unbelievably satisfying exhilaration. Instead, there was naught but a wave of nausea. Emptiness and deflation having turned him into a hollow casing, Gaara purposelessly spoke to the remaining two –who were disturbed beyond rationality for how they were coated in their ex-team member's blood.

"There wasn't any pain. I crushed him with more force than necessary, so it was over quickly," He continued on to calmly recite in twisted, cryptic verse, with every syllable of the horror dripping with malevolence, "The corpse's bitter crimson tears flow and mingle with the endless sand, feeding the chaos within me, making me stronger."

"Just take the scroll. Take it! Spare us... _please_." The thoroughly pathetic and dismal pleads for life from the two remnants caused Gaara's bloodlust to begin to grow again. A second chance apparent, he responded obediently to its cries. Discarding the umbrella, he lifted his two hands and watched as the grappling sand crystals clawed themselves around the two men's forms. The most potent fear they had ever felt smothered them, Gaara's sand following suit and covered their faces. Gaara, with the simple move of curling his hands closed, ended their lives.

Their final, bloodcurdling screams reverberated through and hung in the air for a moment, finally fading into nothing. Gaara lowered his fingers. Yet again he was disappointed, the bad lives filling his mouth with a taste of bile. Kankuro had picked up the scroll, but Gaara hardly noticed. He was dissatisfied, and it was unacceptable.

"It's not... it's still not enough for me." He mused out loud, when anger began to flare in him as his brother began to whine. "What, are you scared?" Gaara snapped, and gained a sense of morbid satisfaction as he saw Kankuro's eye twitch in responding irritancy. Spouting excuses about how pathetic and weak he and Temari were, Kankuro walked towards and stopped in front of Gaara.

His fury flaring, Gaara snarled at him, his words saturated with pure hatred, "Losers! You can't tell me what to do!" Chilling his countenance, Gaara lifted his hand into the air to his side ominously. Kankuro didn't pick up on the hint. He grasped the front of Gaara's clothes, but Gaara was now unaware and uncaring of Kankuro's actions: He had seen movement to the right of him. Someone was hiding in the bushes, watching him.

Pure rage and bloodlust began to increase again, but on the outside it was as if nothing had changed. Kankuro was talking to him, but Gaara ignored it and watched as best he could out of the corner of his eye the shrub that had moved a moment before. He batted Kankuro off him and, ignoring everything around him, began to gather sand in his outstretched hand. The grains swirled, chakra pumping in every single one, and he started to hear the order to kill once more. His brain felt as if it was being twisted and tied in knots, his stomach was being torn apart and the screeches for release and blood pulsated through him.

He was about to strike, the small amount of sand in that area of the bush beginning to rise from the ground, the anticipation of climax scratching at his insides... but it was then that he saw a flash of large, pearl-like orbs stealing a quick look at him from through the leaves. The onlooker. It was _her_.

A voice deep within instantly yelled raggedly at him, _rejecting_ his macabre motivation. With an immense mental scream Gaara released every ounce of bloodlust and rage in an instant: a stifling wave of unbearably strong murderous intent emitted from him, and then there was absolute silence.

In his hand Gaara was clutching, his knuckles white for pressure, the cork for his gourd.

"Fine." He muttered quietly as he twisted the cork into place. His mind was filled with nothing more but numbness as his body throbbed with tiredness and restlessness, and his heart lurched in his chest. He turned and walked away with his visible face inexpressive as ever, but inside his eyes bulged, he breathed with rough rawness and his insides churned. That girl... she had seen him kill... she had felt his bloodlust... She had feared him.

_**END FLASHBACK**_

Gaara finish his thought just when without warning agony shot into his head, as if a blood vessel had popped. Having lost concentration Gaara's memory disengaged at that point, but it was irrelevant. The Sand shinobi's hands flew to his head, his stomach doubling over for the agonising discomfort. Darkness was enveloping everything around him, like waves of emptiness, and Gaara felt himself being sucked into the tide.

He would not allow himself to be lost to nothingness. Gaara thumped the ground beside him, his hand a fist, and the jolt awoke him. His teeth gritted together in ferocity, Sabaku no Gaara tried to suppress the accumulating cranial pain and focus on how there was another memory that he had to endure, the last. It was also the worst. Bitterly, Gaara concentrated. He'd do this quickly and then his frustration would be over. He remembered he had been in the Tower of this exam for half a day, then, and he and his group were walking around. Only to discover that the Tower wasn't quite as deserted as it had been when they first arrived.

_**FLASHBACK**_

"…that little pipsqueak was gonna kill him." Gaara heard the muttered whisper echo in the next room, but he seemed to have been the only one that did so. Walking through the door with his siblings, ignoring their complaints about waiting for something to happen, he felt the room's atmosphere intensify as the only other group saw them enter. Everyone quit their conversations, the silence thick and suffocating. The noise of his footsteps reverberated loudly off the walls, cutting through the quiet in merciless slashes. He sensed a member of the second group jump in surprise at the first bang. Gaara had his stare drift over to the second team.

His breath stopped in his lungs, refusing to expel. _Her_. That familiar girl stood beside two boys, who Gaara did not care to more than hardly notice. The female's white eyes were focused hard on her feet. She couldn't lookat him?

The second team, once they realised Gaara had turned his vision to them, drew harsh breaths. The girl raised her gaze enough to catch Gaara's eyes –and she let out a soft squeak of suppressed breath. Gaara severed his stare from the sight of her face. Fruitless was the movement, however: the image stayed in his mind, undying, unfading... and gut wrenchingly painful. Those eyes were burned into his brain, the emotion that had filled them turning his blood cold and rancid as he thought of it.

The boys had looked at him as he had expected: with that same half-glare, half-cower to which Gaara was well accustomed. But _she_... She had stared him in the face with those white orbs and shown him one thing that would haunt his thoughts for years to come: pure and bitter _disappointment_.

_**END FLASHBACK**_

"No!" Gaara stridently snarled with his face contorted in undiluted rage. He pounded the ground in front of him, only for his sand to form a protective cushion before his fists could touch the floor. Gaara screamed for this and everything else, and the near-deafening, grisly shriek echoing throughout the room. He then let out a quieter, strangled yell and buried his head in his hands to dig his nails into his face, the sand mask that protected him cracking under the pressure. However, it always quickly filled in again, much to Gaara's annoyance. The Sand shinobi lowered his hands and glared at them, hating their feebleness. He clenched them both into fists and dropped them, before closing his eyes and leaning his head against the pole behind him. Focusing on the silence, he cleared his mind.

In time the cerebral agony abated, his hands unclenched and his heartbeat regulated --only for a noise in the far side of the room to steal the silence, and Gaara's eyes snapped open. He glared to the direction from where the sound had come. Expecting it to be his bothersome, useless siblings, when he saw who it truly was Gaara's eyes lost their sharp edge in surprise. Two pure-white irises were looking back at him.

The girl had stumbled backwards when she had seen Gaara's first look, as if she had been brutally slapped. Still however, she did not leave, as if determined beyond logic to enter the room. Gaara watched, then, frozen, as the girl took small steps towards him. He saw her hands were shaking when she stopped about a metre away.

"H-hello a-ag-again." She stuttered. Gaara nodded stiffly in response.

"May... may I sit with... with y-you?" The girl forced from her throat, and Gaara gave her a look over. Her body was quivering, caused by the cold of the Tower or her own obvious fear, Gaara did not know. There was also slight flush on her cheeks while she chewed her bottom lip. He caught her gaze, but the image of the look of displeasure she had given him so soon ago flashed into his mind, and he looked away quickly as if the sight was toxic.

Glaring at the ground, then, he nodded and heard her move closer to sit down. Forcing himself to glance, he dragged his vision over to her. She had sat a small distance away from him, her legs crossed and her hands clasped together, neat in her lap. Her eyes were down, thus it was... safe... to look. Silence spread between the two teenagers, but it irritated like a burning itch. Instead of letting it continue, while keeping his want to destroy the girl suppressed Gaara spoke to her.

"I don't know your name." Instinctively he looked down quickly, knowing that the girl was likely to lift her gaze. He did not give his own: it was unlikely that she had not by now learned the name of the monster of the Sand village. To his statement, there was a pause.

"Hinata Hyuuga." She whispered. How soft a voice; it acted as kindle to the flames of bloodlust in Gaara, and so they flared intensely –before Gaara forced himself to douse them to cinders. He nodded in answer to her, attempting to attach his conscious mind to the conversation. To further this, he risked looking back at the Hyuuga. Fortunately, Hinata's eyes were staring intently at her hands. She remained wordless and soon Gaara rapped his fingertips on the ground in front of him. To his consciousness, the quiet was crippling: if nothing was said, he didn't have a distraction, and he couldn't hold the wildness back.

"I'm sorry." The girl blurted suddenly and Gaara looked up, but quickly down again: Hinata was looking at him. He questioned her instead.

"What for?"

"For... before... and for not c-coming to s-see you sooner. I just, just-"

"You were afraid. Afraid of me." Out of the corner of his eye he saw Hinata give a tiny nod. This talk was not helping him keep from ending her: his bloodlust spiked in numerous directions like a sun of craving, barely staying within Gaara's control. However, another sensation was there, one he sensed was not attached to this hunger. The sensation –feeling?—was awful, as if he had swallowed a lump of rancid fruit only for it to stick in his throat. He overcame this taste just in time to hear Hinata speak again, unprompted and unexpected.

"Why did you do it?" She whispered. Gaara's expression twitched.

"What?" He mused aloud, and Hinata took it as a true question.

"Why d-d-did, did y-you... WhyDidYouKillThem?" She said her last sentence quickly as she shut her eyes and leant back a little. It was as if in a fear of Gaara exploding at her. Gaara's mouth unexpectedly filled with the flavour of sick: it was as if hearing the girl say 'kill' was torturous in a way for him. He turned his head to her, though what he intended he did not know, but thoughts of plans were lost upon vaguely seeing a look of pain in her face. Gaara forced himself to move his eyes to look at hers. His eyelids widened for the existence of that sight. The white pearls were shimmering, and Gaara could see why: her eyes were filled with un-felled tears. Hinata was crying.

His response was an incredible force almost immediately igniting within him. His body was too small a container for such potency. It was not bloodlust as would be expectable for Gaara. The other _feeling_ in him was of some kind of contradiction: dynamic and swirling madly in his essence of being, odd beyond belief... while also of calmness, and truth, casting him into serenity. The _emotion_ was stronger than anything he had ever felt, and no attempt to stop himself would quit his motions of edging his body closer to the girl.

"...Hinata." He murmured, focus upon her, and the Hyuuga looked up at him. Gaara could not guess what she saw, but it had her pause in crying, tears freezing in place to be like ice crystals. That was right: Gaara wanted to... needed to... _had _to stop Hinata crying and, somehow, he knew that this was exactly how he could do so.

Hinata's tears were highlighted by the lights dotted along the ceiling of the room, and one of the morbid stars of sorrow chipped from her cheek, falling to the floor to shatter. Hinata hadn't seemed to have realised however, for her eyes were locked upon Gaara, who was now close enough for their knees to bump together. Gaara of the Sand slowly lifted his hand and wiped more marks of crying from her face with the outside edge of his small finger. He could feel Hinata's body tremble avidly at his touch. He then ran his hand into Hinata's midnight-blue locks, the sleekness stroking his fingers as he took a gentle grip. Disbelieving his actions, but with every aspect and inch of him yearning unrelentingly to follow these motions, he leant his head in, closing his eyes as Hinata closed hers.

He could feel her gentle breath on his face, again despite his sand casing. Their lips would meet to touch in only moments. When Gaara froze. The sand shinobi's eyes snapped open and his breathing stopped, dying in his throat. His heart sped, silently, but the pressure alone pained. He watched petrified in place as Hinata opened her eyes to softly grant him a quizzical look. She didn't understand. Would he have to tell her, admit it aloud?

Gaara knew that it would be easy to move to, to kiss Hinata. She wanted him to... just as an unknown depth in him wanted that more than anything else of his existence, his life itself. He couldn't, however, as he was like the blood that had been on her cheek the first time they met: he didn't belong with her. His kiss would be a _stain;_ a horrible, undesirable blemish on her crystal perfection. Corruption and goodness could not co-exist without the former poisoning the other. Gaara's fingers twitched as the truth scarred his skin.

"We can't." Quietly he spoke, and looked into Hinata's eyes. Gaara didn't need to explain, after all, for his stare communicated his meaning.

"Oh." Hinata murmured, and for a slip, her expression was downcast. After that small show of feeling however, she raised her head, gave a small comprehending nod and Gaara did the same.

Slowly, grudgingly, Gaara pulled his head back to move away from Hinata. Perhaps selfishly, he took a long look at her –mostly paused on her eyes alone— before standing, turning from her to first retrieve his gourd and then to begin to walk out of the room. While he was in the doorway, however, softly she asked something of him.

"Is... Is this the end?"

Gaara paused, and then answered without looking back, "No. Endings are nothing: simple, worthless, and they occur too frequently. This is a beginning. Beginnings are not necessarily the start of something obvious; even invisible changes must have a start –but compared to endings, they are thought of far more affectionately. ...I... I want to remember this, and when I do, I want to remember it fondly." He continued out, leaving Hinata behind.

The demon abandoned his angel.


	3. Ch3 A Second Chance

And so here is the longest chapter of them all, also the finale. This is different in that it is set in Hinata's mind, rather than how the first two were from Gaara's perspective. This chapter takes place somewhere within the two years between the end of Naruto and the beginning of Naruto Shippuuden. Once more, enjoy~

* * *

A Second Chance?

"Hinata? I wish to speak with you!" Hinata Hyuuga lifted her head from one of the numerous books spread in front of her. Gently holding back a front lock of midnight hair from her eyes, she saw Neji enter her office room. Hinata gave a faint smile that became secretly cautious as she noticed the stiffness of her cousin's features –which generally meant he was suppressing emotions that were not particularly in Hinata's favor.

"Y-yes?" Neji inclined his head in a polite, yet taut nod to her before he answered.

"Lady, I wish to affirm something with you, and I hope I will only have to once: I am not your mailman. I also do not enjoy being tailed by mail carriers, only to discover that it is your letter they are delivering, and that they are too incompetent to find you themselves. They then ask _me _to do so, for obviously _my _life is the one that has no higher purpose than to give my superiors their mail."

Hinata's smile weakened for remorse. "I'm sorry, cousin. C-can I... make it up to you?" She suggested, but Neji merely ignored the comment and moved swiftly towards her, so to drop a piece of paper onto her main open book. Seeing he sought to close the issue, Hinata appeased his pride and bought her eyes to the letter. A glint of curiosity flitted through her and so she lifted the message, unfolded it, and read the few quickly-sketched lines.

"I did not read it. However-" Neji was speaking, but Hinata could no longer hear him. As her eyes widened and her grip on the paper intensified, her breath seemed to stop in her mouth, and her body quivered as if with electricity. Neji lifted his eyebrow at the sight.

"Hinata-?" Before he could properly ask, the female Hyuuga stood suddenly, her hand clutching the paper tightly enough that it was on the edge of tearing. A pause more, and then Hinata nodded a bow in thanks to Neji –before jerking her feet into motion, bolting through the door and speeding out of the Hyuuga Compound. Left behind in the wake of her tornado velocity were Neji and the piece of paper, now dropped to the ground.

The Branch Hyuuga family member stared blankly at the door, actually unnerved under his show of composure. His next thought of it being his duty to be aware of his cousin's destination, for her safety, was the motivation to edge towards that piece of paper. It was certainly not curiosity that led him to intrusively read the two sentences of that message; that would be disgraceful, Neji nodded to himself, as he scanned the paper.

A frown line marked his forehead as he finished and he looked again to the door though which Hinata had so dramatically disappeared, and then back to the paper. He shook his head, dismissing this oddness that he could not understand. Laying the letter onto the desk, he walked out of the room, closing the door behind him.

For a moment, the message was immobile and undefined amongst the other papers, as per usual. Only, very soon the tip of the top left corner began to fleck away, becoming specks of apparent-dust. This spread through the rest of the paper in a wave and soon it was entirely eaten away. Left behind was a pile of many grains of sand.

It no longer mattered: the message had been read, understood and reacted to as fully as the sender could have wished, a message that read in messy, handwritten script that had obviously been speedily scrawled:

_To the girl forsaken__…_

_Wish to try a new beginning?_

The biting night air ripped at the bared parts of Hinata's skin as she jumped through Konoha, her breath ragged from running and from desperation. Her eyes began to sting for being open against the wind and she was almost stumbling, but she merely increased her speed. This mad haste was driven by one thought alone, one aspect that so utterly stole all of Hinata's attention: it was the memory of a person whom she had forced herself to forget.

It was nigh unbelievable that _he_ had contacted her, especially for how it had ended... No, not ended, but how everything else began, just as he had said... Along with saying other matters that caused Hinata's insides to wrench when she even considered their remembrance. She dragged her concentration from that subject just before it enveloped her.

Her destination neared, and it became more difficult to breathe the closer she got. The anticipation tightened her muscles, but concurrently Hinata realised that she didn't know why she was running so desperately to this place. She didn't know how she would feel when –_if— _she saw him again, and... in all honesty... she was afraid to think about it. Everything was happening too quickly for her to comprehend; any thoughts she had were carried away by the gust of wind tearing by her as she ran. Abandoning the quest to imagine what to do, what to say, what to think when she finally saw him again Hinata cleared her mind, attentive to nothing but increasing her speed.

She made a violently quick stop upon arrival, before she stood still and the silence took hold of the night once more. She was here again, on the tip of the Hokage's mansion where they had first met, the full moon peering down at her. For a moment she closed her eyes as she enjoyed the feeling of slight nostalgia, and then opened them again to look around... Only for her eyes to widen in surprise: She was alone.

"What?" She breathed out in a murmur and took another look around, but again there was no one. About rushing to come here, about the message, about all those thoughts... She had been wrong. Hinata abruptly realised how cold it was. She wrapped her arms around her and closed her eyes, finally protecting them. They burned, simmering under the shielding.

It was foolish to have come; even worse was to have believed that he would. Had she truly expected him to be there? Someone else could have sent her the letter. It was a coincidence. The letter had shocked her, that's all. It had confused her, distorted her judgement and now she was paying for it. ...—But she had been so sure-

"Hinata?"

The Hyuuga opened her eyelids and spun on her heel. There stood a boy of just above her age, at a distance of a few metres from her. He was dressed in a thin crimson trench coat, black trousers, black sandals and a professionally-cut, strapped leather body piece that held a gourd to his back. His skin was pale, his hair was blood red and there was a tattoo immediately above his left azure eye, just as Hinata remembered.

_He was here_. Although something was... different, somehow... Hinata shrugged off that thought so to merely stare to the boy before her. When Hinata felt her lips slowly form the faintest wisp of a smile, the moonlight glimmered across the pearl of her eyes in a glacier-like shine. Beginnings of memories were consuming her.

"You came." The boy's words, however, shattered Hinata's faint trance and reality was abruptly restored to her. Her smile disappeared, maybe not having even existed in the first place, and although no hostility replaced it... something sent an icy spear of warning up Gaara's spine.

"Yes. W-why wouldn't I have?" By this single answer it came to him: her voice. It was... wrong. It was empty. He couldn't sense her emotion: anger, happiness, any such tone, and although politeness coated her words, Gaara noticeably flinched as if the formality was like acid to his ears. Hinata didn't show a response to his reaction, even though she could not have missed it.

Gaara made a false start for his next words, but he regained himself and after a pause tried again, "I know that most people wouldn't have come after having, having seen..." He trailed off, but the meaning behind his unspoken words hung grimly in the air, and Hinata shuddered as a bitter sickness filled her stomach at the memory. She understood why he hadn't finished his sentence: it was difficult to... to speak about killing someone so viciously, and in cold blood. Well, it was difficult for her, but why-

"But you are different than others, Hinata. You always have been. Yet, I still doubted-"

"Doubted me?"

Gaara looked up, but Hinata had turned her back to him to apparently look into the sheet of blackish blue, midnight sky. She continued on, the moon reflecting off her ivory skin, "It's okay: that's not your fault. I even should have expected it, r-really. Everyone, even I myself, think of me like that. So, so why wouldn't y-you?"

"No, I-" Gaara tried, but Hinata continued on as really speaking to herself now, almost silently, while Gaara simply overheard her. Her voice was as hollow as dead wood for still holding to that empty politeness that churned Gaara's insides with every syllable.

"I'll have t-to accept it sometime, don't I? In everything I try, I'm never good enough. No matter how much I want it. It's r-ridiculous of me, to continue to believe that there is someone who would actually lie to themselves and think me of use to them. Why do I-"

"Stop it!"

Hinata froze in mid-speech, her voice taken from her by Gaara's sudden growl. She turned to face him, but instantly breathed a small, sharp gasp: he was suddenly so close to her. She hadn't noticed until now that he was standing barely inches away, even though his scent filled every breath she took. Now that she did know however, the notice of him caused flashes of memories to flitter through her mind. Her senses acted in reactions for what she remembered of back then and so the past began to override all true reality...

Hinata took swift steps back away from him, away from everything that his presence induced within her. The moonlight was thus free again to reflect against her marble-white skin, and to highlight the expression of tension –and pain—that strained her face. She looked up for the slightest moment and Gaara saw her.

"No. No, I shouldn't be..." She lowered her head and bit her lips to awaken herself from this shade of sadness. Gaara moved towards her. Hinata tried to speak, to excuse her current state, but her voice wouldn't come. She clasped her hands together to quit their shaking. It was then that a second set of hands appeared in Hinata's view, the fingers slender and of a paleness similar to her skin. They had reached out towards hers, hesitating as if unsure of the movement. For a moment was the fleeting idea that they would encase and heat her own hands, especially upon a fingertip tracing her thumb with a skimming touch, but then they were pulled back away.

Hinata finally looked up to meet the sight of two azure orbs. She swallowed, nervousness clogging her throat. He was so near to her again. What was she doing? What should she do?

"Don't say that." Gaara had acted first by speaking, "To follow what other people say about you, is giving up. Prove them wrong. It means less destruction for the world in the long run. I know that, firsthand."

Hinata flushed as these words took effect upon her to break her spat of pessimism. Now she thought how self-pitying she must have sounded only moments ago. She was not that kind of person thus was ashamed she had slipped to that, and in front of him. "I-I... I'm sorry..." She muttered and dropped her stare to her feet.

"It's alright." She heard his voice whisper in reply, but it was then that unexpectedness ruled reality: Gaara breathed out an almost-_laugh_ in amusement. The sound of it, no matter how slight or short, reversed the situation. The moment's intensity shattered, smothered was Hinata's guilt and a faint smile formed on the Hyuuga's face. She looked up at Gaara, a crease of mild confusion lining her forehead.

"What?" She spoke, surprisingly, somewhat light-heartedly. He looked down at her and so she saw it: the very slightest corner of his mouth. It was lifted into a shadow of a smirk.

He was... smiling...

"Every time we speak, you apologize to me." His puzzled pleasure caused Hinata's smile to grow a little more. A laugh, however, became an 'irk' noise in her throat, when finally she thought how she was still so close to him. Unnerved by her own lack of blushing, Hinata couldn't hold Gaara's stare. The Sand shinobi must have also realized, for they both took a step backwards strangely simultaneously.

"Do you want to sit?" Hinata eventually heard, and she saw him wave to the edge of the roof. After she nodded she went to seat herself with her arms around her legs and her chin supported on her knees. Beside her, Gaara's form appeared. As he moved, his leg gently grazed her arm and Hinata inadvertently shivered. Once down, the teenager stretched his legs languidly out in front of him and lay back slightly, supporting himself on his hands.

Her Byakugan holding a great sight range even when not activated, Hinata could see Gaara close his eyes and raise his head slightly to take a breath of night-chilled air, and also his chest then sink again when he gently released it. Her sight caught how the wind played with the ends of his somewhat tousled, spiky crimson hair. She noticed finally, just before realizing that she was absentmindedly watching him, how _peaceful_ his face seemed, free of lines of stress or the shadow of past grievances. Even the dark rings round his eyes depleted in the opal moonlight glow. Shocked and appalled for near spying on this shinobi, however, she blinked to break her stare.

"Hinata?" And was apparently caught before she could guise the evidence. She looked away now, too late, but unable to take the boy's questioning glance. With the feeling that his eyes were still on her as a moment of silence passed --even though for Hinata it seemed an agonizing eternity-- she battled with herself. Reluctance clashed with determination to see if he was still looking.

Finally, Hinata timidly dragged her stare to Gaara... for her eyes to widen a little at the sight. His head was, thankfully, turned back to the midnight black sky again, but it wasn't that which so surprised her. His mouth. Had he been... smiling at catching her?-

"Hinata." At that second sudden sound of his voice Hinata almost jumped, but stopped herself and, swallowing her stress, answered him.

"Y-yes?" She stuttered, looking to him properly as he turned his head back to her.

"I want to show you something... If you'll let me?" The sudden soft solemnity to his voice stole her attention from her embarrassment. Hinata kept looking to Gaara, and she tensed when he held her gaze. After a pause of only slight perplexity, she nodded.

Sabaku no Gaara straightened up in his sit and took in a sigh of night air as if preparing himself. Slowly, then, and with Hinata's eyes intent upon him, he stretched his hand out in front of him and began to move the very tips of his fingers in short, delicate movements.

For a slight moment nothing seemed to happen, but it was after a blink that sand grains started to swirl before Hinata's stare. Slowly was formed a magnificent, life-sized, unique flower hovering in mid-air. Four blossoms were dotted down the stem, fashioned into the shape of bells with quivered edges, and the leaves were ribbons curling from the bottom tip to entwine loosely about the stem. All aspects swayed gently in a non-existent breeze. Its flawless form was coloured by both the dark blue sky and the moon's white light.

"I wanted to show you that my sand can do more than what you may think. I believed, you might like to know that." Gaara said quietly, and Hinata looked to him for a moment, but his eyes were on his creation. Putting her attention to the flower, Hinata stared at such beauty and thought of the implications of having the ability to shape such an image... When the intuition came to her to reach out, to stroke the collection of apparently luscious sand petals, she obeyed. She touched it softly, like she had the sand that had caught her the first time she met Gaara.

It was then that a harsh breeze came, cut across their roof and shattered the flower into countless pieces. The desert grains first swirled in the air in a dance of constellations before drifting back to Gaara's gourd.

Drawing a small gasp, Hinata looked to Gaara, worried for negativity to cross his features. However, what she saw in his face was not remorse or resentment. For the relief of that, she smiled softly. She centered her focus upon his face to his eyes --and, simultaneously, Gaara met and held her stare. They paused in such a position.

Something broke within Hinata, however, and the idea of whatever had--or perhaps had not—just transpired, fizzled into naught. She turned her head quickly away from the boy of the Sand and blanked her expression. She wondered: did he know why she looked away? In the edges of her sight Hinata saw Gaara's eyes leave her and she bit her lip as a silence, the uneasiness smothering, came between them.

Hinata knew why that brokenness occurred: She still remembered it was once _wrong_ for him and her to... to...

Distracting herself, Hinata looked up to put her attention to the full moon. A smile melted onto her face. She had always felt a secret affinity with the moon. When she had been younger she would have spoken her secrets and held her sadness and thoughts under its always accepting light. No human knew her as did that celestial orb. She trusted the moon as if it was a living being loyal to her, even though beyond her comprehension.

The boy beside her she noticed to be looking to the moon too. However, he did so with a different look in his eyes. Before Hinata could decide what it was, a sudden thought occurred to her, thus somehow she finally knew what she could say to overcome the silence.

"You've changed... a little, at least." There was no response for such a length of time that she considered either repeating herself or shying away, but a quiet voice stole her thoughts.

"That is, in no small part, related to you." For his answer Hinata turned her head to Gaara, but then quickly moved back to stare into the sky, seeing he had looked to her too. Did she believe that? Or, if she did not, then did that mean that she did not trust _him_? Deciding she had only imagined his words, she elaborated her original point.

"You seem calmer, happier now," She paused to find bravery, "I'm glad for you."

"Thanks." She heard it: he had genuine gratitude in his tone. A smile came for this proof of his elevated happiness, but soon her lips lost the expression as an idea came to her.

"I wish, that _I_ too-"

"You have changed, Hinata; more than you realize." His words had the kunoichi struck dumb for a moment.

"T-t-thank y-you?" She knew the words sounded bewildered and that she also looked it for her sudden flush, but the Sand shinobi beside her... for the ease in his pose, Hinata would almost suspect he was amused. A gentler quiet almost began to spread between them, then, but a thud in Hinata's mind knocked an epiphany into her: she could not let a silence appear just yet. There was an issue, which both teenagers were avoiding mentioning.

He said she was different, now. She had run from this potency before. ...She was different. She would not run away again. Determination flowing, filling her body, Hinata brought her to speak.

"You know," She started with her voice in a whisper, only just above squeaking, despite that determination. It would have to do, "I, I didn't know what I would feel... When I saw you again, I mean. I- I was worried that maybe all I would know would be anger, or sadness, maybe even enough to regret coming at all.

I knew it was likely to be like that and p-probably logical, too... but... I guess I just didn't want to feel those about you. Ever. Even if what I had instead was harder to deal with. It was when I did see you that I realized, in that split second, that I wasn't... angry or sad... but actually happy: because you came, because you were there. I r-realized... that I had _missed_ you," She chuckled partly in joy and partly in bemusement, "I had missed you even though I hardly knew you." However, the frivolity was protection for against her next words. It quickly died.

"I had felt afraid of you more than once. I c-can't deny that. It had been _awful_ seeing you like, like that, while in the forest. _B__ut_-"

"Hinata." She looked up at the sudden sound of Gaara's voice and turned her vision to him... and her eyes widened, for the look that he had. In the next second, she knew that she would not reject that look this time.

As frozen as the appearance of her skin, Hinata watched as Gaara lifted his hand and ran the back of his fingertips down her cheek before two of his fingers and his thumb curved to grab her chin, his touch soft, light. He used those to slowly, cautiously, lift her head towards his. Anticipation for the coming touch near overwhelmed.

Still he managed to pause before impact. Hinata held Sabaku no Gaara's stare and she quaked a little. How far had they both come, to be back here like this? Was it different now? Was it different _enough_, that they could--?

"I'm sorry. I'm sorry that I made you afraid, that you saw me kill, that I made you cry, that I... I hurt you," Gaara muttered these words, obviously suffering much difficulty in stopping himself from averting his gaze from her eyes, "I ask... if you_ forgive me_?"

Hinata, her breath stolen from her, had to force out a few words. She needed to finish what she had begun to say before. He must know.

"But... I knew it wasn't the real you. Now, there's n-nothing... to forgive." Their lips met.

Supreme happiness, uncontrollable and encompassing bliss, enveloped Hinata. This was it: the new beginning of life with experiences full of awakening power just like this time, because she and he were... they were finally strong enough, to allow themselves to need each other. She could only close her eyes and in the kiss lose herself.

The hand not upon Hinata's face Gaara placed gently upon her lower back, so to pull her closer towards him. She accepted his contact, his words, his past and present and future promise. For this time of expression of that... _trust_... he closed the slightest distance between them. He even let himself give a real, miniscule tremble as Hinata so delicately ran her hands into his hair to twirl the ends of the blood-red tresses round her fingertips. He was allowed to be with this person whose strength was not for destruction, but creation.

Gaara's sand exploded in a whirlwind about them together, rushing and spiralling from their feet to the tops of their heads until a spherical tornado of energy unrelenting swept so strongly around them.

When the time came they separated, though Gaara's arms loosely still hung round Hinata's waist. The sand fell around them slowly in a crystal curtain that glimmered as the moonlight reflected upon the specks. Hinata touched her lips with the tips of her fingers. It would be unbelievable, to think that potency and subtlety were at balance in her for this moment, if she did not believe in the boy she looked up at now. It was true reality, however: she trusted that. When Gaara looked to her, she smiled, and in return Gaara touched and held his forehead to hers.

The moon shimmered gracefully above the two teenagers. The silent protector of the world: giving hope to those without a chance, delivering those who are lost home, and reminding all those who have forfeited in the search for... whatever they believe to be love... that nothing is ever truly lost unless you stop seeking it. The moon, perpetually the embodiment of perfection, is now mirrored forever in two pairs of eyes: one azure and one pearl-white, two beings united eternally.


End file.
